Icarus, Drowning
by miloowen
Summary: In the aftermath of the arrest of Admiral Eric Pressman, William Riker faces both his own disgrace and his destroyed friendship with his captain.


The captain hadn't said anything, and things seemed to be back to normal, but Riker still felt as if he were in the proverbial doghouse, as far as the captain was concerned. He'd never known the captain to hold a grudge, but he felt that the intimacy, the friendship, that he'd finally been able to cultivate with Jean-Luc, was now over. His upcoming questioning at Pressman's court martial wasn't helping the matter, either; it would have been one thing, if he could just have taken a shuttle, but the admiralty had requested the captain's presence as well.

It was stupid, but in a way, he felt bereft. He'd worked so hard to gain his captain's confidence in his ability to run the ship the way the captain wanted, and then he'd worked even harder, to reach the point where he could have a drink with Jean-Luc in his quarters, where they could talk ship's business or no business at all. He'd blown that out of the water, apparently, with his inadequate handling of his own responsibility in Pressman's destruction of the _Pegasus_.

Then, of course, there was the reason for his inadequate handling of everything that had to do with Eric Pressman, and the undercurrent of fear he felt as the date for Pressman's court martial approached. In his mind's eye he could see the look on the captain's face (Riker could no longer allow himself to call him Jean-Luc, even in his own thoughts) when Pressman revealed the reason for the behaviour of one stupid ensign named William Riker.

He hadn't asked anyone for advice, because he knew what he should do. He should do what he should have done as soon as Pressman had appeared on the transporter pad. He should tell the captain the truth. It would probably mean the end of his stay on the _Enterprise_, but there was the ever-present fear that Pressman's court martial and his questioning would end his career anyway. And why shouldn't his career be ended? By what right had he survived, when most of the crew was dead, and had been for twelve years?

He could retire, he thought. It wasn't what he had worked so hard for, but the alternative, that they'd send him into exile at some Deep Space station somewhere, was a worse prospect than retirement. He was the owner of his mother's cabin, outside of Valdez – not that he ever wanted to go back there. But he could sell it, and that, coupled with what he'd saved all these years, would give him a nice little stake in – in something, he just didn't know what.

Maybe, he thought, he could open a restaurant somewhere. He could handle going back to Earth and doing that, as long as it was far away from Alaska and even farther away from San Francisco.

Introspection had never been a strong suit, and he suspected that was one of the reasons he was in the trouble he was in. Better, he thought, just to man up and take his medicine. It wasn't, he mused wryly, as if flogging were an option anymore.

The captain answered the door chime with his ubiquitous, "Come."

Riker paused at the threshold, having momentarily lost his nerve, and he heard the captain say again, with just a hint of irritation in his voice, "Come." Good way to start, Riker, he thought, piss the captain off even before you tell him what you should.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," he said as he walked in.

The captain didn't bother to raise his eyes from his padd; just continued to sip his tea. Well, he had succeeded in pissing him off, but it was way too late to worry about that now. He stood at attention, waiting for the captain to finish punishing him for not answering right away.

Finally, the captain said, "Sit down, Number One."

"Sir," Riker responded automatically, and he slid his leg over the chair and sat. There'd been a time when that manoeuvre would have elicited a quirked eyebrow or an upward turn of the lip; now there was nothing. It was too bad, Riker thought, that he hadn't been phased with the rest of the _Pegasus_ crew.

He waited, trying not to bleed anxiety all over the captain's ready room, but he couldn't stop the tremor in his hand, or the jogging of one leg.

Picard set his mug down on the desk, and looked up at Riker. His face was set in his default neutral expression and his eyes, it seemed to Riker, were hard and dark.

"Is there something you need, Number One, or is this a social call?" Picard asked.

Riker cringed. It was unnecessarily cruel, he thought, for the captain to say that, seeing as how there'd been no social calls for well over three weeks, ever since the captain had opened the door to the brig and let him out. He wondered if maybe he would have been better off if he'd just insisted that he remain, along with Pressman, in custody.

"Sir," Riker began, and then he didn't know what to do. He looked down at his shaking leg and stilled it. He bit his lip. "I wondered if I could speak to you, sir. If you have the time." Well, that was innocuous enough. He could always hope that the captain, in the current mood he was in, would just tell him to get the hell out.

"Is there a problem, then, Commander?" the captain asked. He closed down his padd and looked expectantly at Riker.

"Not with the ship, no," Riker said hurriedly. "But – with me – I mean," and he swallowed, once, nervously, "I need to tell you something, sir."

Picard narrowed his eyes, then reached for his mug and took a sip of his tea. "Something you clearly don't want to tell me," he said. "This has to do with the court martial, then?"

"Yes, sir," Riker said.

"You've decided to tell me what neither one of you would tell me before?" Picard asked.

Riker sighed. "Yes, sir," he repeated.

"Is there a reason why you've made this decision now?" Picard set the mug down on the desk. "You've learned it's going to be made public, for example?"

Riker blinked. Was it possible the captain already knew? Had Pressman already said something, in an effort to muddy the waters? He said cautiously, "You already know, sir?"

"I don't know anything," Picard responded and Riker could hear the barely-concealed anger in his voice. "I only know," the captain said, "what you've thought has been in your own best interest for me to know."

Shocked, Riker found himself blinking back sudden tears. His stomach twisted, and he realised he was somehow reenacting all those "talks" with his father, where he sat on the other side of his father's desk, or the kitchen table, and looked at the floor, and was held accountable for grades that were never high enough, and scores that were never high enough, and a little boy who was just never, ever good enough. Is that who the captain was now? His critical and judgmental father?

"I'm sorry," Riker said miserably, and he wasn't quite sure to whom he was apologising, "I'm sorry for everything."

Picard laughed, a short, sharp sound that made Riker want to turn around and flee.

"You're personally responsible for it all, are you, Number One?" he said acidly. "The whole sorry mess of it?"

If he just said yes, he was, would the captain let him leave? Instead, Riker replied, "I'm sorry because you might have thought I was a good officer, once. Because you might have thought, once, that you knew me. That you could trust me." He paused. The truth, he thought, was that his father had been right all along. He had never, in the end, amounted to much.

"And I shouldn't think those things anymore?" Picard said softly, but Riker was too miserable to hear the change in the captain's tone.

Riker wanted to wipe his eyes, because he was pretty sure there were going to be tears running down his cheeks, and he didn't want to embarrass the captain with how pathetic he was. He kept his hands pressing against his legs, so they would stop shaking, and he answered, "I didn't defend my captain because I thought he was right, or because I thought the crew was wrong. There was nothing honourable about what I did, as misguided as it was."

"I see," Picard said. "Why did you defend Eric Pressman, then, if it wasn't because you thought the crew was wrong in mutinying?"

Riker said, "I defended him because I was sleeping with him. Because he'd told me that he loved me. Because he'd said he would protect me."

He waited, then, for the explosion of justifiable anger and disgust, his eyes blindly staring at his boots, his hands pressing into his thighs.

"Oh, Will," Picard said.

"I've already sent you my letter of resignation, sir," Riker said, still looking at the floor. He didn't understand why Picard wasn't shouting at him, or cutting him down, the way he deserved to be, but this – this silence – was even worse than he thought was possible. Somehow he'd managed to disgust the captain so much that he was speechless.

"How old were you, Will, when you joined the _Pegasus_? You were right out of the Academy, weren't you?"

He said, shrugging, "Twenty-one, sir. The same age as most ensigns." The threat of tears was receding, but he still didn't look at the captain.

Picard stood up, and turned away; Riker, still looking at the floor, saw Picard's back to him and thought perhaps his own shame was so great that the captain could no longer look at him.

"Twenty-one," the captain repeated. "Pressman is, what? Perhaps ten years younger than me?"

"I don't know," Riker answered dully. What difference did it make?

Picard said, neutrally, "Have you had a relationship on this ship with an ensign?"

Riker did look up then, but Picard was still looking out the ready room window. He wasn't sure where this conversation was heading, and he didn't care; he'd said what he'd come to say. He'd resigned; he didn't owe Picard anything else.

"Sir," he said, "if I could be dismissed now –"

Picard wheeled around. "You'll answer the question, mister," he said.

Riker had started to rise; he dropped back down in the chair. "I don't understand," he answered, and then, "No, sir."

"Why not?" Picard asked, moving back to his desk.

"Because I don't fraternise with junior officers," Riker replied, and then, "Oh."

"I won't accept your letter of resignation," Picard said, sitting down.

"But, sir," Riker protested. "I've been compromised. When Starfleet finds out –I'll be an embarrassment, sir. And – " He hesitated for a moment, and then added, "You don't want me here, sir. I understand that."

Picard cupped his hand around the empty mug of tea. Finally he said, "I don't even know where to begin, to answer that."

"Please, sir." His control was finally fracturing, and he put his face in his hands.

"Why were you silent, when he came back on this ship?" Picard waited, and, when Riker didn't respond, said, "Answer me, Number One."

"He ordered me not to talk to anyone, especially you," Riker said.

"I could order you to jump out an airlock and you wouldn't do it," Picard said, anger creeping into his voice again, "so why did you follow his orders, when you didn't follow Edward Jellico's, for example? Did he threaten you?"

Riker glanced at Picard. He didn't understand why Picard was trying to find him an out in a situation where there was none. "He didn't have to," he said. "He knew why I did what I did. I let all those people die, because – " _Because you're a whore, Billy_, his father said. "I let all those people die."

"Why did he need to offer you protection, on his own ship?" Picard asked, again in a neutral tone.

"I was having a problem with the first officer," Riker replied. "I didn't understand what I was doing to bug him, and the captain stepped in, helped me…."

"Into his bed," Picard said dryly. "Is it possible, William, that he isolated you and then offered you protection in order to have a sexual relationship with you? You don't think that his pattern of behaviour was abusive? You don't think, given how unconcerned he was about his victims of his obsession with the cloaking device, that perhaps you were a victim too? Will?"

Riker said, "I wanted the attention –"

"Of course you did," Picard said impatiently. "You were perfect, weren't you? You were tailor-made for him. Abandoned by your father, no mother, completely on your own at the Academy, bright, eager to please, good-looking – you might as well have had a sign around your neck."

Riker was hopelessly confused. "I don't understand," he repeated. "You've been so angry with me for so long and now it seems like you're trying to justify my behaviour." He looked up at Picard. "I was complicit, sir." He stopped again, and then his face twisted and he said, "In the relationship, in breaking the treaty, in their deaths. My behaviour was –"

"It was what?" Picard asked, again in a tone Riker couldn't quite identify.

"Disgusting," Riker finished. "It was disgusting."

"So we hear from your father now," Picard said. "I wondered when he would show up."

"I've already recommended Data as your first," Riker said, ignoring Picard's comment, not because he didn't understand the comment, but because, ultimately, what difference did it make? "You'll have to approve the switch in quarters, sir."

"You are resigning your commission?" Picard asked.

"Yes, sir. There'll be no more offers of a ship after this, sir, and I've brought enough shame here. There's a ship leaving for Earth after the court martial." Riker stood, hoping that Picard would now dismiss him.

"Sit down, Will," the captain said.

"But –"

"Sit down."

Riker sat.

"Have you sent your letter of resignation to Starfleet?" Picard asked.

"No, sir. I sent it to you, first," Riker answered.

"Good," Picard said. Then he sighed. "This is a mess," he said, and it was the first time Riker had heard the captain use his conversational tone with him in three weeks. "You are a mess." Picard stood up, and walked to the replicator, where he ordered his usual tea. "Do you want something to drink?" he asked.

Riker shook his head. He watched the captain take his mug and return to his desk. He thought, Please don't offer to help me. I don't want anyone to waste time on me anymore.

"I am not going to accept your resignation, Commander," the captain said, "nor am I going to accept your condemnation of yourself and your actions in this matter. If you have taken my anger at this situation – and my role in it – as anger directed towards you, personally, then I apologise. If I have distanced myself from you these past weeks it is because of the role I must play in Captain Pressman's court martial, and because I cannot discuss with you what I already know about those proceedings – and what I already know about the questioning you will have to undergo." Picard paused, and then he said, "Will. Look at me."

"Sir," Riker said. "Please – "

"Don't speak, just listen," Picard said.

"Sir." It was automatic, this response to the captain; he hated it – or was he simply conflating the captain and his father again? He didn't know. He only knew the pain he was in – and that it was pain he knew intimately.

"Did Eric Pressman restart the relationship – or try to restart the relationship – that he'd had with you while he was on this ship?"

There was no point in hiding his disgrace anymore. There didn't seem to be much point in anything, anymore. He said, "How did you know?"

"You were suffering," the captain said, kindly. "We all saw it. We couldn't do anything to help you. You had to stop it yourself. Because you couldn't stop it, when you were little."

"But," Riker said. He felt flayed. "You've been so angry with me. You _were_ so angry with me."

"Yes, I was angry," Picard agreed. "I'm still angry. I'm angry with your father, for hurting you when it was his duty to care for you. I'm angry with Pressman, for abusing you. I'm angry with myself, for not dealing with this issue sooner. And I've been angry with you, because you could have come to me. You should have come to me."

"I was ashamed," Riker said.

"I know," Picard answered, "Will."

Riker was silent. He felt his eyes filling with tears again and he blinked them away. "What do I do now?" he asked.

"You have mandatory counselling with Deanna," the captain said. "Mandatory. For however long as she decides you need. And with whomever she appoints, if it's too hard to deal with these issues with her. You accompany me to the court martial. You tell the truth, no matter how painful it is. You expose Eric Pressman for the evil that he is. And then you return with me to the _Enterprise_, and you continue to do your job and your duty, just as you have always done." Picard stood up, and he walked around the desk, and he placed his hand, lightly, on Riker's shoulder, and let it rest there. "Will," he said. "I'm not your father. So what if I was angry? Have I ever given you cause to fear me?"

"No," Riker said, and he felt the truth of that statement, finally. "No, sir."

"And do you believe that now, Number One? Truly?"

Riker felt the warmth of the captain's hand on his shoulder. He could tell the truth, if Jean-Luc would stand beside him. He didn't have to spend his whole life ashamed.

"Yes," he said. "I believe it."

"Perhaps," the captain said, "Number One, you might care to join me in a glass of wine."

Riker found himself grinning, for the first time since Admiral Pressman had come aboard. "I'd like that, Jean-Luc," he said.

His fall was no longer insignificant, nor would it be among strangers; he would be caught, it seemed, by his friends.


End file.
